Friday, August 15, 2014

Okay, now all you broke college students can leave me alone (he said with a wink).
This delicious orecchiette pasta recipe only has a handful of ingredients, is
very cheap to make, and probably most importantly, only uses one pan or pot for
the entire procedure.

Every year when it’s time to go back to school, I get
inundated with requests from students to post recipes that are super easy, only
cost pennies, and require a bare minimum of kitchen equipment. This should
work.

And here’s a quick idea; the next time you're going out to
get another tattoo, don't, and instead go buy something for your kitchen. Do
this every-other time, and you’ll eventually have a nicely stocked kitchen, and
still plenty of ink covering your body.

Anyway, back to the recipe! Cooking pasta in the pan with
the other ingredients lets it absorb more flavor, and the starch it releases
creates a very nice, rich, and comforting sauce. This does require you paying
attention and constantly adjusting at the stove. You need to adjust your heat
up and down, and also how much liquid you're putting in.

Speaking of liquid, only use stock or broth that’s homemade
and has no salt in it, or a very low-sodium packaged broth. If you start with a
seasoned stock it will be way too salty to eat when you're done. Otherwise, you
should be in for an eye opening, or should I say ear opening, treat. I hope you give this
a try soon. Enjoy!

Ingredients for 2 large or 4 small portions:2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 onion, diced

8 ounces spicy Italian sausage

about 3 1/2 cups unsalted or low-sodium chicken broth

1 generous cup orecchiette pasta

salt to taste

2 large handfuls roughly chopped arugula or other greens (if
using something like rapini, add earlier so it has time to cook through.

Hey, Chef John! If I wanted to add white wine to this sauce, when would be the best time to add it - before or after the broth? So excited to try this method. Hoping it'll put me one step closer to emulating my favorite pasta dish at home.

This tasted great and it was super easy. Not exactly healthy...but...hah...I don't think healthy was in the commercial.

My boyfriend loved it. I always promise him quick easy meals and I always end up getting fancy and taking much longer. I told him, "Yeah, this will be quick." He smiled while knowing history shows I'm lying. Boy was he shocked when a few minutes later I said it was done and the kitchen was clean before we ate... Num nums.

This looks amazing. I'm a foodie newbie. "Spicy Italian sausage" is not exactly common where I'm from (Denmark). When I google "spicy Italian sausage" in my own language see what's what there does not seem to be once answer as to what it actually consists of.

I imagine it's important to get the right meat for this dish. Maybe you or someone else could tell me what's actually in these sausages?Thank you!

This is more of a technique question, but if you know you will need more liquid, why not add more at the beginning? I understand you are building up and may not know the ultimate amount, but it seems clear you need at least double than what you started with. Would it affect the cooking in some way?

Chef John I've been lurking for a while but thisis the first dish I've actually followed the directions start to finish and it came out very good! It would have been great but I failed in one respect, I used cheap store-bought "reduced sodium" chicken broth and it is super salty! It's edible, but I should have listened and used a lower salt or home-made broth, like you said. Turns out you make these points for a reason lol.But even so, I love the flavor and the nice thickened sauce that comes out at the end! Ok, back to lurking, and will follow directions more closely next time. So fun to learn from a real live chef! :-)

I used chicken Italian sausage, farfalle, and baby kale -- the sausage because I don't eat pork (aside from the occasional bacon), the farfalle because I prefer it XD, and the baby kale because I couldn't find arugula of any variety or level of unruliness. Turned out quite well :3

My husband hooked my son on your website, and now they both e-mail and text back and forth with the latest Chef John dish each has tried. This was one dish my son made last week, so of course we're trying it this week. The kid is very picky and said this was "amazingly good." And at last I have a dish dedicated to Orecchiette--one of my favorite pastas--"elephant ear" or "small ear" because doesn't it look like one.